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Smaller and Smarter: Field Recording Hits New Heights

SAN FRANCISCO—Go back a few years
if you can, and it’s easy to recall that the
process of getting much-prized video from
the field and into the studio involved a fair
amount of schlep and prep. And then there
came the first inkling of something new:
the ability to drop the bulky videocassette
from the video camera altogether, and consider
instead these new palm-sized recording
devices that promised to do the heavy
lifting of recording high-res video right
there where you stood.

It’s true that the process of recording
in the field has changed—so much so, that
the question now is not whether it’s simple
to record in the field, but rather how deep
the features on a portable recording device
can actually be. Tick off a list of what’s
featured in the newest batch of portable
storage and recording devices, and you
get a listing of high-res LCD screens and
on-the-fly NLE editing features, with the
smallest of models packed with immensely
powerful processors. There’s an enormous
amount of technology available at a developer’s
fingertips to make what previously
was a simple step in video recording—record
in the field, and then get it back to
the studio—into a revamped, elegant and
practical piece of the acquisition process
that just happens to occur out in the muck
and snow and wind of the real world.

SIZE MATTERS
One reality that’s very evident: size matters
when it comes to successful solutions.
For storage and recording options on the
road, Blackmagic Design has offered new
solutions as part of its HyperDeck Shuttle,
one of the industry’s smallest solid-state
4:2:2 video recorders in a 2.5-inch, palmsized
broadcast deck.

Files are captured in native uncompressed
10-bit QuickTime and compressed
Apple ProRes 422 or Avid DNxHD MXF
files. The next generation HyperDeck
Shuttle 2 with ProRes compression serves
to reduce the size of uncompressed
HD video
files while preserving fullframe
4:2:2 quality, allowing
customers to record
up to six times longer, the
company said.

“Adding ProRes 422
recording and playback
gives users the freedom
to work in either compressed
or uncompressed formats,” said
Grant Petty, CEO of Blackmagic Design.

Sound Devices PIX 240 recorder

The shuttle has standard deck-style
function buttons with LEDs to indicate
input signal lock, recording status and battery
status, as well as closed-caption support.

At their most simple, today’s slate of
portable recorders are designed to help
videographers accelerate their workflow.
That was certainly the case for Sound
Devices. Simplifying the production and
post checklist was a primary goal behind
the development of the PIX 240i recorder,
which records QuickTime files in either
ProRes or DNxHD format, with files then
ready for editing in an NLE.

What also sets the system apart, said
Jon Tatooles, vice president of marketing
and business development, is the device’s
multi-angle offerings: it serves as recorder,
frame rate scaler, converter, timecode generator
and field monitor. The latest generation
also has the ability to handle ProRes
4444 and can work with compact or solidstate
flash drives. “The way we approach
the market is to spend a lot of time with
our customers in the field to see where
trends are going,” Tatooles said. “What we
offer are features customers are wanting to
use now.” The company also offers the PIX
220i, designed for smaller format cameras.

Not only are there a growing number
of manufacturers diving into the portable
storage market, but more are recognizing
the need for accessories to bring it all to
fruition. AJA Video Systems recently introduced
new storage and dock accessories
for its Ki Pro family of tapeless video recording
devices, including the KiStor
Drive, which is a USB 3-enabled device, and
the Thunderbolt-enabled KiStor Dock with
USB3 connectivity.

Using SATA connectivity to connect to
the recorders, the KiStore Drives are available
with either one or two consumer connectivity
ports. Likewise, the KiStor Dock is
designed to mount KiStor drives on Mac or
Windows desktops and then transfer files
at high speed, the company said.

AJA Kistor Drive

PORTABLE BACKUP
Calling it a removable archive that
works alongside the company’s XT/XS
series of server solutions, EVS offers its
removable server, the XF2. The system has
two removable hard disk drives for backup
transfer during live or near-live production
scenarios. It can serve as a backup platform
for content in the XT3 and XS production
servers and a gateway platform between
EVS servers and NLE stations with Gigabit
Ethernet connection.

The newest solution to hit the road is
the XFly, a portable and compact storage
platform that includes eight removable
SATA hard drives with up to 6.2 TB of storage,
providing up to 140 hours of HD at
100 Mbps.

These portable solutions are designed
to offer operators an easy way to back up
clips and feeds, the company said. When
live shooting is complete, the operator is
able to transport the entire production—
including program feed, multicamera
angles and highlights—in a single storage
case. Features include on-the-fly MXF
or QuickTime file wrapping and the ability
to automatically generate proxy files
while streaming multiple live fees simultaneously.

Atomos Ninja2

For recording in the field, Roland Systems
Group has offered the F-1 video field
recorder, which is able to capture HDV or
DV directly to a hard drive in the field. The
system offers two channels of balanced
audio, a removable HDD, multiple power
options and an RGB output for quick control
and thumbnail viewing. The system offers
HDV/DV and MPEG-2 50 Mbps recording.
Users can record up to 27 hours of HD
video on a 120 GB hard drive.

In addition to a long line of professional
desktop storage solutions, Sonnet Technologies’
mobile solutions include four
members of the Fusion family. The Fusion
F2 portable SATA RAID storage system
offers 1.5 TB of storage and the portable
two-drive Fusion F2QR contains two 2.5-
inch 1 TB drives. The company rounds out
its mobile options with the Fusion Mobile
Rack, an internal one-bay removable storage
solution for PCs; and the Fusion F3, a
portable two-drive RAID storage system
with 6 TB of storage.

One of the first companies to introduce
a portable digital video recorder with fullcolor
video monitor was
Fast Forward Video, which
has found success with its
SideKick HD recorder, a
camera- or battery-mountable
device that captures
HD video up to 220 Mbps
with 4:2:2 sampling and a
number of codec options,
including ProRes 422. In
addition to a 4-inch color
screen with playback options,
the recorder can
handle HD/SDI and HDMI
with the ability to record
on a SATA hard disk or solid state drive up to 1 TB.

Portable options also come in the form
of the HD3, a portable, HD, broadcast-quality
deck that can configure into a single
channel or dual HD-monitor channel system.

For HD and SDI storage, DVEO has introduced
the Millennia HD, a portable
HD DDR with native H.264 codec that
provides long-time recording of 1080i or
720p content. Designed for rugged operations,
additional capabilities include H.264
encoding/decoding to or from DVB/ASI.

Atomos’s Ninja is a relatively inexpensive
portable touchscreen professional 10-bit HD recorder, monitor and playback device
designed to record directly to ProRes
via HDMI with the ability to play back
video instantly on the Ninja touchscreen.
The so-called all-in-one solution includes
the aluminum chassis Ninja unit, HDD/
SDD master disk caddy, batteries, charger
and docking station.